


endurance test

by owlinaminor



Category: Bandstand - Oberacker/Oberacker & Taylor
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, References to Shakespeare, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:15:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23046856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: “You don’t know how to lead a band,” Jimmy says, “and you want my help.”Donny splutters for what seems like the appropriate amount of time (two counts of four, approximately 60 beats per minute), then sighs and reaches for another piece of pizza.“And what if I do?”“Then you’re fucked,” Jimmy replies, steady as the motherfucking snare drum player inBolero.
Relationships: Donny Novitski & The Donny Nova Band, Donny Novitski/Julia Trojan (implied), Jimmy Campbell & Donny Novitski, Nick Radel/Wayne Wright (background)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 55





	endurance test

**Author's Note:**

> i saw the bandstand tour last weekend, and zack zaromatidis' donny was so young and angry and fucking _electric_ that i simply could not rest until i wrote him a character study. the rest of the tour cast was incredible as well, please see this production if you can!!
> 
> title is from "breathe" (of course), and this is un-beta'd so if you see any typos, let me know.

> _JIMMY: If you’re going to be a band leader, you’d better learn how to talk to people._

So maybe Donny throws the notebook on the ground just to see if Jimmy will pick it up.

Okay, that’s not quite right. He throws the notebook on the ground because he’s pissed, he’s always pissed, there’s this undercurrent running through him like whiskey or electric wire, this need for Michael to be here and need for the world to pay for Michael and need for himself to pay for all the goddamned need. It’s exhausting, is what it is, and when Wayne flips out about his schedule and Nick flips out about payment—Donny’s not cut out for this, okay? He’s twenty-three and hungry, he’s clever and he needs a band, or at least he needs mouths to cover parts, or at least he needs bodies to stand still and listen when he shouts cues.

He drops the notebook. It lands on the wood floor with a soft _tap,_ easy to ignore in the noise of Donny fighting to keep his band afloat.

And then, maybe, yeah, he leaves it to see if Jimmy will pick it up. Jimmy does pick it up: gently, as though it’s important, as though it contains some great contest-winning secret and not just Donny’s chicken-scratch lyrics and unspoken rants at half the club owners in Cleveland.

Jimmy offers the notebook back to Donny: also gently, like an offering in church, or like a teacher returning a failed test. Fuck. That’s Jimmy, isn’t it. He’s studying to be a lawyer, for god’s sake, only here in this shithole club on a Tuesday because there’s an edge to him, beneath his politeness—something that makes him stand up and play the standard when Donny suggests he doesn’t know it.

“The ship explodes and I’m in the water with my dead friends,” Jimmy says. “I play to forget that shit, not relive it.”

“So you’re saying my band’s a shipwreck?” Donny says.

And he knows Jimmy can hear the other questions, layered underneath in three-part harmony or maybe four, maybe a blues chord with a minor seventh.

_Are you saying you’re done? Are you saying this band isn’t worth the spit it takes you to wet your reed? You were the first guy to actually listen to me in weeks, and now you’re giving up just like that?_

Jimmy looks at Donny. He’s soft, and smart—smarter than the rest of them, smart like yellowed encyclopedias in the backs of libraries and old movies, silent ones, the kind where you have to pay attention to every frame or you’ll miss the key to the plot.

Smarter than the rest of them, sure. But still greedy, or at least arrogant enough to play at greedy. _Rubber said you were good enough to go all the way to New York with us._ You know this song, Jimmy, you know the melody and the backing chords, you know how to keep a steady second line beneath a wailing solo, you know how to rise up there yourself, Jimmy, come on—

“I’ll see you Sunday,” Jimmy says.

Donny’s shoes feel lighter the whole walk home.

That Thursday, Donny shows up at Jimmy’s apartment with a pizza and a six-pack of beer.

He knows where Jimmy’s apartment is—made all the guys fill out a band directory between warm-ups at Tuesday’s gig. Donny may not know how to lead a rehearsal, but he knows how to harass people when they don’t show up to rehearsal. His piano teacher used to do that, old Mrs. Keisner, come down to his house and bang on the door until he came out to the living room and started his scales. She’d tap one long fingernail on the piano lid, steady as a metronome, and count for him in Ukranian. _Raz, dva, tri._

Jimmy’s apartment is far outside of town in a complex that looks almost suburban, rows upon rows of blue plaster walls and white trim. Donny climbs up three flights of stairs, then down one, then up two, then finally arrives at the correct number, and even then he has to wait outside on the thin porch, peering over at all the identical apartments lined up like building blocks, shifting from one foot to the other, until Jimmy blinks out at him. Have his glasses gotten rounder since Tuesday? No, that can’t be possible.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Jimmy asks.

“I—well.” Donny thrusts the pizza at him. “You had an exam today, right? I thought you could use a reward.”

“It was a quiz,” Jimmy says. “But… thanks.” It’s a long pause—a pause that Donny wants to step inside of, pull out a melodica and start improvising, bridge the space between one syllable and the next. But he can’t just do that, can he—can’t just barge in, not if he’s going to get the band to listen to him. He has to—what was it Jimmy said? He has to talk to people.

“Can I come in?” Donny asks.

Jimmy blinks at him, blinks for long enough that Donny starts to wonder if he has some enormous secret squirreled away behind the door, or if he thinks Donny’s going to infect his whole apartment with a rare disease only carried by idiots who don’t know Shakespeare.

But then Jimmy sighs and steps back, opening the door into a living room of soft carpet, books stacked on every available surface: futon, windowsills, side table next to a record player, on the floor by the closet. Jimmy makes no effort to clear anything, just plops down on his futon and stares at Donny expectantly, so Donny sits next to him—the futon sags comfortably beneath his weight—and pulls a bottle opener out of his pocket to crack open the first beer. He offers it to Jimmy, fizz and all.

“I know why you’re really here,” Jimmy says, half an hour and three-quarters of the rations later.

“What?” It comes out more like, _whaaa?_ Donny chews, swallows, and adds, “What do you mean?”

Jimmy rolls his eyes—something about the glasses makes him look particularly exasperated, like he has to shield himself from Donny’s incompetence. Or maybe that’s just his face.

“You don’t know how to lead a band,” he says, “and you want my help.”

Donny splutters for what seems like the appropriate amount of time (two counts of four, approximately 60 beats per minute), then sighs and reaches for another piece of pizza.

“And what if I do?”

“Then you’re fucked,” Jimmy replies, steady as the motherfucking snare drum player in _Bolero._

Donny nearly drops his pizza. “What the hell?”

“Because I don’t have any idea how to run a band either.” And then, when Donny’s mouth refuses to close, he adds, “Just because I can offer some constructive criticism doesn’t mean I’m ready to take over.”

“Woah, hey, who said anything about you taking over?”

Jimmy leans back in his chair, peering. He has several types of Peers, Donny is realizing, ranging from Curious to Angry, and Donny is ready to classify them all, for the sake of his continued survival if nothing else.

“Alright,” Donny confesses in the wake of this particular Peer, which he classifies somewhere in the realm of Not Taking Your Bullshit. “Maybe I wanted you to be the brain behind the throne. But this is great! We can figure out how to do the band leader shit together.”

“And you think I’ll help you… why?”

“Uh.” Donny takes a bite of pizza, hopes it will help him think. It doesn’t, but it’s still greasy and warm, the crust satisfying to crunch—Jimmy owes him for the food, really. “Extra credit?”

And Jimmy laughs—a surprised sort of laugh, like even he wasn’t expecting Donny to be this ridiculous. “In what class?”

Donny shrugs. And then he leans across the table—it’s not really a table, exactly, so much as a slab of wood laid across two opposing piles of books, which makes it a bit precarious for leaning but Donny is nothing without a challenge—and does some Peering of his own.

The thing about Jimmy is, he’s a very good saxophone player. Donny heard it when they jammed, he heard it at the gig, and he knows it now. His tone is smooth, his intonation is precise ,and he can trill like a piccolo player on a power kick. Good players deserve good bands. And Jimmy _wants this—_ wants the band, needs the band—needs to be pulled out of this shipwreck of an apartment, all books instead of bones.

Donny looks at Jimmy: meets his eyes, wide and dark behind the glasses. Jimmy can hear the harmonies behind this melody.

“You want this band to win, right?”

Jimmy leans back and around the edge of the futon to grab another beer, and that’s how Donny knows he’s got this.

Johnny’s hands are shaking around his beer bottle.

It’s almost audible—rhythmic, knuckles clacking against the glass. He’s been sitting there at the bar, curled around the same half-full beer, for almost an hour. The other guys have all gone home. He took his pain pills, Donny’s pretty sure. He’s pretty sure Johnny took his pain pills. But it’s so hard to tell with Johnny sometimes, all this rhythm wound tight inside him like a spring pushed in too tight, like he’s a middle-school snare player given the big solo at the end of the Sousa march but told to keep it _piano_ for ninety-six bars first.

Donny watches for half a minute, or eight counts of four, and then slides onto the barstool next to Johnny.

“Hey,” he says. “You need a ride home?”

Johnny looks up at him wide-eyed—surprised, like he forgot to count, or like he forgot there was a band around him at all.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” he says. “I’m the one with the car.”

Johnny talks slow. He talks precise, careful, enunciating every syllable, a bass drum under a ballad. Trying to keep time without drawing too much attention. And yet he draws attention anyway, doesn’t he—his bright smile and the way he focuses, the way he looks at you when you talk and nods along, as though he’s inscribing every word in his memory.

“I can drive your car,” Donny says. “I’ve just had one beer, I’m okay.”

Johnny cocks his head, considering—listening to some faraway rhythm Donny can’t hear.

And Donny asks, because he has to ask, because Johnny’s two years older than he is but Donny’s the band leader and Johnny seems fragile somehow, made of delicate sixteenth-notes or blown glass—

“Did you take your pain pills?”

Johnny’s eyes widen. “Shit, I _knew_ I forgot something when I left this morning.”

And so Donny drives Johnny home. Johnny’s pickup truck is old, well-used even before the war, all peeling blue paint and thin plastic seats that stink faintly of grease. Donny has to try three times before he can get it to start—Johnny goes under the hood and pulls a cord with his still-shaking hands, and finally the sparks come to life in one long burst. Like a firework, like the start of an upbeat tune, fiery horns and fast snare.

The ride is quiet after that, though. Donny hasn’t driven since patrol runs in the Pacific, and watching for stop signs and kids out late takes a very different skillset from running jeeps hard and fast to keep the wheels from sticking in the mud. Johnny points out the turns, always just a moment too late for Donny to put his turn signal on and break properly, and he ends up skidding them along the pavement to avoid hitting a fencepost.

“Sorry,” Johnny says every time. “It’s easier when I’m driving, you know, like muscle memory.”

And then—well, Donny’s not really sure why he says it. It’s something about the deep quiet of these streets after dark, so familiar and yet so menacing, a landmine hiding behind each long shadow. There’s an engine beneath Donny’s hands, and rigidly as he keeps his hands gripped at ten and two, his fingers could always slip—something could jump out into the headlights—he could flip. And hasn’t Johnny flipped enough? _Three times, three times I’m telling you._ It’s a lot of power, driving a car. Just like playing piano is, like holding a microphone is, like raising your arms and knowing a band will follow you. And who has the right to command a band like that? What makes you qualified—just saying you can do it? How do you know that’s enough?

And so Donny says it, he says, “Do you think they all hate me?”

Johnny keeps staring ahead, long enough that Donny almost repeats his question. But finally he answers, slow and careful: “You mean the band, right?”

“Yeah.” Donny slows the car for a stop sign, holds the engine rumbling quiet for two counts longer than he has to, just to make sure nobody else is coming.

“I don’t think so,” Johnny says.

He pauses, then, and Donny nearly screams—he needs _something,_ there in the streetlights and the rumbling, needs to know he’s right or he’s an idiot, can’t take these slow half-opinions—and maybe he’s the one who was shaking back there at the bar, not Johnny, Johnny only seems blurred because his own frame of reference can’t sit still.

“I think you write good songs,” Johnny says. “And we all know they’re good songs, and we want to play them well.”

“But you don’t think—” God, Donny sounds needy. Like he was at eleven, begging his piano teacher to let him play his own compositions. _Get a grip, Novitski, be reasonable._

“But you don’t think,” he tries again, “I’m too harsh, or I give bad notes?”

“You give good notes,” Johnny says. “You know what we need to do to make the song work.”

Donny laughs a little, at that—tight and low, harmonizing with the engine. “I don’t know what I’m doing. But thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Johnny says.

He’s so sincere. And that’s the thing about Johnny, right—he’s been stripped away, somewhere between the jeep accident and the operations and coming home with a rhythm in his fingers and not much else, he was stripped down like bare walls after turpentine, and now all that remains is his core. He’s careful, maybe, he speaks slowly, he keeps every beat safe in his chest and practices it a hundred times, but he’s honest. Hard not to be honest on drums, really. Everyone can hear you when you fuck up.

Donny tries to drive more slowly, the rest of the way. He takes the quiet streets, peers at each street light and shadow. He asks Johnny, at every intersection, _how long until we turn._ And that engine keeps roaring steadily, evenly, a backbeat by which he can steer.

“See you at practice tomorrow,” Johnny says, backlit in his doorway, before Donny heads off to find the bus. And the funny thing is—Donny actually believes Johnny’s looking forward to it.

Most people are 60 percent water. Donny Novitski is 60 percent need.

He needs: intonation, mostly. He needs the rumble of the trains going by his apartment in the morning, he needs the crack and hiss of the radio, he needs the whistle of the factory smokestack, and he needs all of it to be in tune. He also needs people: horns to fill in harmonies, mostly. Voices to agree with him when he’s right, hands to shove him when he’s angry. He needs the clink of shot glasses, though beer bottles will do. He needs a piano when he can’t sleep. And he needs—he _needs—_ to win the fucking Tribute to the Troops contest.

But he has never needed anything, he thinks after rehearsal one night, quite as badly as Nick Radel needs to have the pole currently up his ass pulled out and whacked over his head.

“What is your problem, exactly?” Donny says, coming over to the corner where Nick’s cooling down with some lip slurs.

This is dangerous, he knows: Julia’s gone home already, Wayne couldn’t make it today, and Davy, Jimmy, and Johnny are all off in another corner planning drinks, so there’s nobody to immediately pull Donny back in case of a fight. (Dangerous for Nick. Obviously.)

“What do you mean, what’s my problem?”

Nick somehow makes taking off his mouthpiece and emptying his spit valve sound like a threat.

“I mean,” Donny says, taking one step closer, close enough that he can smell the grease and sweat—and Jesus, how long has it been since Nick showered. “Every time I give you an instruction, you roll your eyes at me, or you talk back, like—like you’ve already decided I’m wrong and you know better.”

“Well, you _are_ wrong and I _do_ know better,” Nick replies without a beat. This isn’t a proper call and response, or even harmonizing. It’s a minor second, tones stuck too close together.

Donny looks around for help, but the rest of the band has left. It’s just him and Nick—Nick polishing his trumpet like it’s the only thing worthy of his attention right now.

And, fuck, Donny wants to _push—_ wants to say, _I need you to listen to me._ Or, _I need you to follow my orders._ But that won’t help, a voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Jimmy says. That’ll just make Nick angrier.

Donny paces around to the piano, instead, and bangs out a few chords. Rachmaninoff: he keeps a couple of the guy’s piano etudes on deck for blowing off steam, specifically after rehearsals like this.

When he’s sufficiently stretched his wrists and banged his fingers on the keys, he looks up to find Nick staring at him, that withering glare like rehearsal’s not over and Donny’s just made another _comment_ about Nick’s _solo._

“Novitski,” Nick says.

And Donny says, “Radel.”

“How did you know I was in a POW camp?”

And just like that, Donny’s impression of Nick shatters: slides, like a shot glass pushed from atop a piano, glass and liquor spilling cacophonous across the keys. It’s been two weeks since Donny—and that was a stupid comment, Donny already protective of a guy he barely knows, already staking his fucking territory like a dog pissing on the fucking mailbox—how stupid can he be, bringing up someone’s fucking _imprisonment—_

 _Get a grip, Novitski,_ the Jimmy voice in his mind says.

Okay. Yeah. Get a grip. Talk to people. He can do this.

“Davy told me,” Donny says. “I didn’t—I didn’t know it was supposed to be private.”

Nick stares, deflates a little. His shoulders slump, his grip on his trumpet case goes slack. Donny slides over on the piano bench, towards the lower registers, so that Nick can sit beside him.

“I don’t know,” Nick says. “I don’t know that it is. But you know—you know it’s cowardly, right? You think I’m a coward.”

“What?”

“For getting captured.”

“No, I—”

“It’s okay, everyone does.”

Except that it is clearly not okay, judging by the slant of Nick’s shoulders, the way he’s shaking, the grip of his hands on the piano bench, his knuckles going white. He’s staring at the door, like he has to leave but he’s frozen here in place, caught between bars with no breath to get him to the next note.

The thing about Nick Radel, Donny decides very suddenly and decisively, is that he’s as brash as his solos. He goes high and stays there, wailing, because he’s not sure he could find a melody in any other register. He’s angry at himself, like they all are—and he’s needy, he wants intonation and he wants to be seen. Like Donny.

“I don’t think you’re a coward,” Donny says. “Except about articulation. You can always go tighter.”

And then, before Nick can respond, he starts playing the bass part to _Heart and Soul_. It’s simple: just four chords, repeated in precise syncopation. It’s steady. Donny watches as Nick starts to tap his feet, ever so slightly, in time with the beat. Sixty beats per minute—a resting heartbeat.

“You know this, right?” Donny says. “You can play the high part.”

Nick cocks his head, listening, then nods. He can indeed play the high part. He picks it out with one index finger, arrogant like only trumpet players can get away with, but he stays in time. They play two repetitions like that: harmony, rendered in staccato. Two grown-ass jazz musicians hunched over an old piano, picking out a children’s love song.

Then Nick ends it with a C octave—one note to an index finger—and slides off the piano bench.

“Just don’t bring it up again, okay?” he says.

Donny nods. “Okay.”

Donny wakes up to blinding sunlight, a pounding head, and a terrible ache in his back.

He closes his eyes, then rolls over onto his stomach to further avoid the light. His face presses into—a couch? Is that what this is? Scratchy fabric, a little dusty in the crack between two pillows. Donny rolls again, onto his side this time. He can breathe, but he’s shielded from the sunlight. Great. That’s enough moving for at least two hours.

“Hey, private!” comes a booming voice from somewhere above him. “How’re you feeling?”

Donny groans. It’s too loud. Hasn’t anyone ever told Davy he’s too loud? His voice is like a fucking timpani, or a submarine engine. Must be drowned in hundreds of gallons of water for the sound to be borne.

“That bad, huh?” Davy says. “Well, I’ll make us some eggs, that’ll help.”

“Shut up and let me sleep.”

Davy laughs—and, god, his laugh is worse than his voice, all booming and rumbling, like a clap of thunder that’s had three beers. Is Davy enjoying this? Is he having a good time? How dare anyone have a good time when Donny feels like he’s going to shit and puke all at once.

“I let you sleep in all morning already,” Davy says, still sounding far too chipper. “You’ve gotta get up soon, we’ve got rehearsal at two.”

At two? What the fuck, what time is it now?

“It’s twelve-thirty right now,” Davy says, and if he can read minds Donny really is gonna kill him, they could’ve been using that to steal the competition’s songs for weeks.

Donny opens one eye to glare at Davy, who’s apparently been sitting across from him in a ratty leather armchair, book open over his chest, for god knows how long. He wears reading glasses. Donny hates them immediately: they make Davy look like a professor who leaves coffee stains all over his students’ papers. Donny had a professor like that, his one semester of community college before he joined the army—the asshole always said Donny was wasting his potential by playing the clubs on nights and weekends. Didn’t know what he was talking about.

But Davy’s no professor, is he? He’s a bass player, solid in jeans and an old gray T-shirt, watching Donny like he knows Donny might puke any second now but that would be okay, it would, Davy keeps a bucket of bleach and an industrial-strength vacuum cleaner specifically for this purpose. Davy is like a bass himself, really. Wide and deep, holds you up when you’re stumbling. And Donny remembers, suddenly, getting here last night: remembers one arm around Davy’s shoulders and one around Nick’s _(Nick’s?),_ remembers being arranged carefully on his side on the couch, remembers a steady hand offering him water and a bucket. He fell asleep soft and woozy, like he was floating, but if he went too far, Davy would pull him back down to earth.

Donny clears his throat, to keep himself from saying something stupid like, _thank you,_ or _I like your couch,_ or _would you be the older brother I always wanted._

“Okay, eggs,” Donny says. “And toast. And coffee. Please.”

“At your service, my liege,” Davy replies, giving an exaggerated bow before getting up out of his chair.

Davy makes eggs. Omelets, actually—sausage and tomatoes and onions all sautéed together. He pauses, at one point while everything’s simmering, to bring Donny a glass of water, which Donny tests first by smelling and then by collecting a drop on his finger, because he doesn’t quite trust Davy not to slip him some vodka as a joke. (It is, in fact, water—clear and cold, the best thing Donny’s ever tasted.) Davy starts humming, after that: he runs through their whole set, melody parts. Donny stops to correct him on the articulations for _You Deserve It._ He knows he’s being an asshole, but hey—his stomach’s still churning, he has to distract himself somehow.

“How’re you feeling about the contest tomorrow?” Davy asks a few minutes later, once again in the armchair, shoveling in eggs across from where Donny’s tired body has been coaxed into a vaguely-vertical shape.

“Fine,” Donny lies. “I mean, Julia’s the lead soloist now, so my workload’s half as light.”

Davy looks at him. And here is the thing about Davy: he may drink three shots of whiskey in ten minutes of rehearsal, but he can hold them, he can keep the alcohol swirling in his chest like slow-burning fire. He can hold a lot of things safe in that broad chest. Guilt, of course, like all of them, but also fire, also laughter, also a slow relentless drive to truth. He plays the bass: the band sits on his shoulders. He knows when one of them is faltering. He can feel it, he can pick them back up.

Davy puts down his fork, balances his plate on the arm of his chair, and goes over to a low bookshelf beneath his window, tinged golden in the early-afternoon-sunlight. He runs a finger along several reddish-brown spines, then rests on one, pulls it out and brings it back. He sits next to Donny on the couch this time: Donny feels the cushion sink with his weight, can smell the faint oil of Davy’s aftershave.

He opens the book to an earmarked page, and begins to read:

> Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;  
> Or close the wall up with our English dead.  
> In peace there's nothing so becomes a man  
> As modest stillness and humility:  
> But when the blast of war blows in our ears,  
> Then imitate the action of the tiger;  
> Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,  
> Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage… **  
> **…Be copy now to men of grosser blood,  
>  And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,  
> Whose limbs were made in England, show us here  
> The mettle of your pasture; let us swear  
> That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;  
> For there is none of you so mean and base,  
> That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.  
> I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,  
> Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:  
> Follow your spirit, and upon this charge  
> Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

Davy’s voice grows louder as he reads, enunciating every syllable in even pizzicato, and Donny doesn’t know what any of it means but he can picture it—Davy standing atop a hill, calling out to an army in the valley below, each man staring ahead determined and certain. Donny hears how Davy’s voice would echo, carried by the wind, and reach every man, reach them individually even as it reached them together.

“So, that’s… Shakespeare,” Donny says. “Is it Shakespeare?”

“It is,” Davy replies. _“Henry V._ The start of act three, the king inspiring his troops before a battle with France.”

“And you read it to me… why?”

“It’s one of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches.” Davy reaches over and grabs his plate, has a bite of toast before he goes on. “But everyone takes it out of context. It’s not about inspiration, not really. It’s about self-invention. Henry creates this imaginary England where all men are warriors, they’re all connected to the land, they’ve all got noble blood, shit like that. He doesn’t really mean it—he’ll mistreat the peasants again a few scenes later. But that idea, that imaginary England. It makes everyone equal, just for a moment. And they pretend to be incredible warriors so intensely that they are.”

Donny nearly failed English, his senior year of high school—always pored over charts instead of reading. But he thinks he gets what Davy’s saying, now. Soldiers in a valley, all brought together by someone telling them they have a common goal. But still—

“What does this have to do with the contest tomorrow?” he asks.

“Self-invention,” Davy says. “That’s what you do for us. All those lyrics— _ain’t we proud, you deserve it—_ you sing it, and we can believe it. Maybe we _are_ back, and we _are_ proud, and we _do_ deserve a parade. We’re the fucking Donny Nova Band and we’re gonna win that contest—you invented it, and if you keep singing the victory, and we playing it, it’ll happen.”

Davy looks at Donny, and his face is serious behind the glasses—college professor, bass player, or something deeper, something like a poet or a priest.

“You imagine it, and you make it real,” Davy says. “That’s why we’re gonna win tomorrow. We’ve won already. Nobody else stands a chance.”

Donny doesn’t get the connection, not really. But as Davy finishes talking, his stomach starts to rumble—nausea subsiding finally—so maybe the Bard is good for something practical, after all.

_There is a train._

Michael said it, in dugouts and in trenches, crouched together in the backs of jeeps, about to sprint into battle. _There is a train. It leaves the station at a quarter after five._ And we will be on it. _We will._

Donny hears Michael’s voice in his head—every night and every time he sings, but especially now. Crouching below the bandstand just trying to breathe.

Breathe. In, out. In, out. Focus on your heartbeat. Sounds like an engine, if you go too fast. An engine or a snare drum, just kicking up the tempo.

 _You imagine it, and you make it real,_ Davy said.

Well, if he can’t make Michael real, he can at least conjure up a motherfucking train. He’ll lay the tracks himself if he has to.

_I think we are entitled to travel first class. Don’t you?_

Nick is already two drinks in when Donny sits down next to him.

Donny slides over in the booth and reaches one arm around the back just to see what Nick’ll do, which, as it turns out, is lean back into it and stare at Donny with one eyebrow raised, his forearm splayed out in a wide angle, his beer tilted ever so slightly in—and Donny’s not great at poetry or algebra but he can read body language, he knows a challenge when he sees one.

Well. Donny’s always operated well in tight spaces. He lifts his glass and downs the rest of his gin and tonic in one long go—can feel, without quite having to look for it, that Nick is watching his throat move.

Nick is attractive, once you look for it. Or once you look past his trumpet playing. His face is all curves, round cheeks and full lips, like he never quite grew out of his baby face or maybe held onto it, stuck his face in his hands and pushed it into shape for an hour every night that he could store as much air as possible. And there’s an intensity to him—anger, humming just beneath the surface, shimmering in his dark eyes and the way he holds himself, always ready to scream or strike.

Donny likes to get close to Nick. To get up in his space, to tell him, _this is my piece and you’ll fucking do the articulations the way I tell you._ Nick folds his lips around a mouthpiece better than anyone else this side of the Rockies—everyone in the band knows it, but Donny especially knows it, and if Nick were to open his legs right now and tell Donny, _blow or I quit,_ Donny would sink to his knees without question.

Or maybe that’s just the gin talking. The gin or the high—won a contest last night, got two gigs lined up this week, melodies running hot through Donny’s veins just waiting to be pulled out.

“Radel,” Donny says, keeping his voice level and his gaze steady. “Can I ask you something?”

Nick meets his gaze, dark eyes unreadable in the shadows of the bar. “Probably not.”

“Oh, come on.” Donny slouches, feels himself going petulant. This wouldn’t have worked two weeks ago, maybe not even two days ago, but the band has a new comradery in light of what they’re all calling the Bayer Aspirin Bullshit, and Donny feels looser, feels needier, ready to reach out and take. Whiskey, melodies, answers—he’ll take it all.

“Alright, fine,” Nick says. “But nothing stupid.”

Donny smiles for a moment at his victory, then lets his face go stern. “What’s up with Wayne?” he asks.

Something about the name—or maybe the way Donny pronounced it—makes Nick tighten, shrugging himself out from under Donny’s arm and sitting up flat against the back of the booth.

“What do you mean, what’s up with Wayne?” he says. And his voice, too, is tighter: the consonants are sharp, and Donny wonders if he couldn’t spin this into a metaphor at the next rehearsal before he kicks himself. _Focus. Talk to people._

“I mean, is he okay,” Donny says. “On stage last week, when we were talking about how we’d get to New York, he said—”

 _“I can think of something quicker._ Yeah. I heard him.”

Donny moves in closer, tries to look at Nick. Nick is brash and loud, open as his solos. When he’s angry, all of Cleveland knows he’s angry. But he gets angry like this sometimes, too: quiet, an intense quiet, like he’s vibrating on a frequency just outside of the range Donny can hear. He’s been through hell. All of them have, of course, but for Nick it’s something personal—something guilty—something Donny wishes he could wash away with booze or melody, just to keep Nick from staring, sometimes late at rehearsal when he thinks nobody can see, at Wayne.

“Do you know—” Donny starts to say. No, that’s a stupid question, if Nick knew he wouldn’t say it here. He tries again: “I mean, it’s been echoing in my head all week, and I thought as band leader I should—I don’t know, I feel responsible, and—”

Nick scoffs, takes a swig of his beer. “Sure. And what’re you gonna do? Call him a doctor? Send him to the hospital for shell shock? You know they don’t allow trombones in those places, right?”

“I don’t know,” Donny says. And admitting he doesn’t know—Nick should know this is big, should know he’s obligated to help at this point. “I just thought I could talk to him, maybe. You know him, right? From before? What—what might help?”

Nick nods—a slight nod, as though to keep time. And then he considers: takes one swig of beer, then another, then wipes at the condensation on the table with his sleeve. Donny wants to reach over and shake him—get close enough to yell right in Nick’s face, _I need you to tell me, I need to take care of my band and I need you to fucking tell me what’s wrong with Wayne so I can help._

“I knew him,” Nick says finally. “I know him. He needs us—he needs the band to keep playing well.”

And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?

“What, like—” Donny starts to ask.

“Wayne is good at compartmentalizing,” Nick says. “He can push it—whatever’s happening with him, which I don’t know, I really don’t, stop looking at me like that—he can push it down when he’s playing. So he’d want us to keep playing, keep getting better.”

Playing as a distraction. Donny can understand that. Still, it seems—not enough. _I can think of something quicker._ Fuck, Wayne. Donny can’t afford to lose him—can’t lose a trombone player, not now, but more than that can’t lose Wayne, this strange clipped man who always presses his jackets and can read counterpoint like he’s a direct descendent of Johannes motherfucking Bach. He copies all of Donny’s rehearsal notes on his sheet music in careful pencil and Donny loves that handwriting, needs it, wouldn’t be able to pull his wrists across the keys without Wayne’s fingering marks and his pencil crescendos, line seven as if they’d been drawn with a ruler.

“But what can I do to help _him?”_ Donny asks.

“Well, I don’t know that,” Nick says. “It’s not my job. I’m not his fucking wife.”

The word _wife_ hangs there for a minute, sharp and clipped, like a flash of light among the shadows. Illuminating. Donny can read body language, can see challenges and paths to solutions. But he doesn’t know how to solve this—to broach this pain, this guilt—so instead he just sits with Nick, buys two more beers and then two more after that, and tells his own stupid war stories until the bartender calls last round.

“Hey, Wayne,” Donny says, sliding into the booth next to him.

Wayne has started staying later after rehearsals, after gigs. Donny’s trying not to notice, just as he’s trying not to notice that Wayne and Nick have started leaving together, sometimes, Wayne grabbing Nick’s trumpet case and shoving him with it when Nick tries to pick a fight with Davy. When it becomes an issue for the band, Donny’s decided, he’ll address it. But right now he needs to talk to Lieutenant Wayne Wright, all the sharp angles of him, the pursed lips and the white knuckles clasped tight around a beer.

“Novitski,” Wayne says.

Donny gets closer, but not too close. Remember, he tells himself: Wayne likes personal space, doesn’t like to be touched.

“I could use your opinion on a tune I’m writing,” Donny says.

Wayne sizes Donny up like he sizes up everything, like he’s got a set of scales in his head and will punch the whole damn structure apart if the balance is a tenth of an ounce off.

“Right,” Wayne says. “You sure you don’t want someone with a less rigid set of music rules?” He doesn’t do the air quotes, but they’re audible.

Donny shakes his head. “No, this—this is about lyrics.”

Wayne frowns at Donny, then takes a drink of his beer—some independent brewery Donny doesn’t recognize, of course—then frowns at Donny again, then finally relents.

“Alright. Sure. You have until I finish my drink.”

Donny clocks the beer level: it’s about one-third full. He can do this.

“Okay, say you had a friend,” he says, “and he said something kinda concerning, and you didn’t have time to ask him about it then but you want to find out if he’s okay, because yeah, he’s your friend, but you don’t want to embarrass him, so you want to—say you want to leave him a message in a song. Just to say, I want to know you’re okay, or I want to help you if you need it. What would you say? How would you leave that message?”

Wayne sighs, a long exhale like the end of a ballad. “How much did Nick tell you?”

Wow. Donny hasn’t been called out this quickly since Julia found him getting high on reefer in the bathroom before a gig.

“Nick didn’t,” he says, but that sounds fake even to him. “I mean, I made him—”

“I’ve known Nick Radel since the tenth grade,” Wayne says, staring at Donny from the other end of the booth. His eyes are very blue and piercing, like broken glass. “He can’t keep his mouth shut to save his life. Now, come on. He told you that my wife kicked me out, right? That my family is falling apart?”

And now it’s Donny’s turn to stare. He grabs Wayne’s beer and takes a drink. Stupid of him, really, to go into this conversation without a drink of his own. He’s getting a shot after, he deserves it.

“But—but your tight ship,” he says. “Your schedule.”

“So Nick didn’t tell you. I didn’t know he had it in him,” Wayne replies, thoughtful. He pushes his beer towards Donny, adds, “And this is yours now, I’m not sharing your germs.”

Donny nods and takes a drink, thankful for the alcohol even though Wayne will probably charge him for precisely one-third of a beer later, make him count out exact change.

“He just told me—well, I asked him about what you said, at the contest,” Donny says. “When you said—”

“Yes,” Wayne cuts him off. “I know what I said. It was careless. I got frustrated, and I got upset. I wasn’t thinking. I apologize for worrying you. I’m fine.”

But he isn’t fine, is he? He isn’t: Donny can see it in the stretch of his shirt over his shoulders, folds rumpled as though left in a suitcase, and in the circles under his eyes. Wayne probably has to sleep on his back, same spot every night, arms folded across his chest. And now he’s crashing in some shitty hotel room or on some friend’s couch—Donny is impressed suddenly that Wayne’s solos are still tight, the same eight-bar melodies that he’s been playing since their first gig.

“You’re not fine,” Donny says—pushes the words across the table like they’re something tangible, heavy like a tuba or a rifle. “And you can tell me what’s going on, if you want. Or you can at least tell me how I can help.”

Wayne hesitates. And that’s the thing about Wayne, right: he’s always hesitating. He’s doing this constant cost and benefit analysis in his head like some kind of sick banker, calculating the trade-off between precision and accuracy, honesty and vulnerability. He’s got anger, sure, and guilt, like the rest of them, but he keeps it close beneath his skin, humming quietly like a second heartbeat, and when something happens—don’t touch him. Don’t touch Wayne Wright. Don’t you dare, not unless you’ve asked once, twice, put on gloves and asked the names of his kids and promised him that you will keep your hands to a prescribed area, tap your fingers strictly in four-four time.

“I don’t think you can help,” Wayne says, finally. “What you could do—you’re doing it already. This band is all I’ve got now. I need to know you all have my back. And I—I know that. I have it.”

Donny looks at Wayne. He drains the beer, lets the carbonation fill his throat, then gets up, goes to the now-emptying bar, and orders two whiskeys.

“Wayne,” Donny says, setting the glasses down on the table with twin _clunks._ “What’s your favorite classical music piece?”

Wayne raises an eyebrow, but answers quickly: _“Toccata Marziale,_ by Vaughn Williams. Why?”

“Jesus, Wayne.” Donny leans back against the booth, grins up at the ceiling. There’s a baseball stuck up there, between two rafters—wonder what _that_ story is. “I wanted something for a _small_ group.”

“You did not specify these parameters when you asked the question,” Wayne says. “Therefore I answered honestly.”

Donny pulls his head back up to look at Wayne, incredulous. “Sure, but don’t use _therefore_ in a sentence, what _year_ is it—”

 _“Stars and Stripes Forever,”_ Wayne says. And then, when Donny frowns at him, adds, “Okay? John Phillip Sousa. It’s a classic. Does that work?”

“You know, Wayne,” Donny says, “I wanted to get the band to play a piece for you, something where the arrangement won’t make you pull your hair out. This wasn’t supposed to be difficult.”

Wayne stares, at that. His blue eyes go all wide, the lines on his face smoothed or transformed into something new. It’s fun to surprise Wayne—to play pranks on him, yes, Donny’s helped Davy coat Wayne’s mute in something unmentionable more than once—but more than that to give him something, to look at him and say _hey, this is your band as much as it is mine,_ to watch his façade falter and his anger boil over into something softer, something like friendship.

“I think we can do that,” Donny says. “I think I can play the piccolo part on piano. We’ll figure it out.”

(They do, in fact, figure it out. The arrangement is the highlight of four gigs in a row, and each time they reach the last breakstrain Wayne moves to the front of the stage, closes his eyes, and _blows_ —unconstrained by schedule or fear.)

Donny ends up next to Julia on the train.

He isn’t planning it—they all switch back and forth at first, pacing up and down the aisles and calling out jokes to each other and running to grab more champagne because they _can,_ it’s all been paid for and they’re going to take this train car like they took every jazz club in Cleveland and a few in the suburbs besides—but by hour four or so, everyone’s static in one seat or another. Johnny’s napping with his head pillowed on Davy’s shoulder, Nick and Wayne are both leaning over some mystery novel Nick brought, Jimmy’s got two seats to himself with a pile of law textbooks. And Donny is next to Julia.

She’s in the window seat, leaning her cheek up against the glass, her face all pale and hollowed-out in the too-close reflection. Donny knows he should be watching the scenery roll by outside the window, should be keeping track of every tree and river and patch of sky from here to New York, should be writing them into a song for later—but he keeps watching her instead. Her cheek against the glass, her lips pursed with concentration, lipstick smudged from the champagne. He wants to ask her, _is the window smearing your makeup? Is this trip worth quitting your job? Would Michael be proud of me?_ The questions build and build with the rattling of the engine until finally he lets one slip—

“Do you think Michael would be proud of me?” he says, aching and vulnerable, an open seventh with no third or fifth to balance it out.

Julia turns to look at him. And that’s almost too much—Julia is beautiful, sure, but up close she’s breathtaking, she’s all soft cheeks and dimples and wide eyes, green and endless as the horizon over Lake Eerie on a sunny day and looking right at Donny. Donny wants to fall into her. He has since he first heard her sing, there in the church—wants to be the sunlight illuminating her brow, or the oxygen filling her lungs. He _wants—_

Well, he wants a lot of things, but right now he needs to pay attention, because Julia is talking to him.

“What do you think?” she says. “Do you think he’d be proud?”

And isn’t that just like Julia—she can’t have a conversation without making it twice as difficult.

Donny thinks about it, though: stares out the window, watches the haze of brownish-green flow by, clocks three farmhouses out in the distance, then looks back at Julia.

“I think so,” he says. “We’re on the train, right? We’re going to New York. But then—we didn’t pay for this all ourselves, did we? The tickets are from Oliver, and Jo, and Al, and—”

“And why did they pay for those tickets?” Julia asks.

Donny shrugs.

She grins at him, kind and benevolent like she knows something he doesn’t—which, to be fair, is usually true.

“Because we’re the best damn band to ever come out of Cleveland,” Julia says. “We’ve packed their clubs for weeks. We’re making the city famous. Paying our fare—it’s the least they could do.”

“Oh,” Donny says.

“Yeah, _oh._ Donny—you put together this band. You told us all, hey, don’t be satisfied with your shitty life, you can be something better. And then you wrote the music, and you talked to the clubs, and you made us rehearse even when we were all hungover, and—” And here, Julia leans in close, close enough that Donny can smell her lavender perfume and almost press his lips to her cheek— “And yeah, Donny. I think Michael would be proud of you.”

Donny smiles. It starts slow, then comes on strong, mezzo-piano all the way into fucking forte. Of course Michael would be proud. Jesus. Michael is probably watching this from the seat two rows back, cursing Donny for getting so close—or no, okay, if there is an afterlife, Michael probably has better shit to be doing. But the point stands. They’ve made it: Donny’s made it, and Julia has, and somehow between them Michael has, too.

“You’re right,” Donny says. “Yeah. But I still—I keep feeling like I should be doing something _more._ Writing down everything I see out of the window, or practicing for the preliminary, or at least drinking for two.”

Julia shakes her head. “I think Michael would forgive you for a few hours of sleep,” she says. “There’s better champagne in New York. And besides—I took a train on this route with my mom once, to visit her cousin in Boston. The ride’s just twelve hours of flat grass. Nothing to write home about.”

The way she delivers it—bright and no-nonsense, like she’s back at the perfume counter listing off the new arrivals—almost makes Donny laugh. The thing about Julia is, she’s endless. She’s like one of those Gershwin tunes she loves so much: just when you think you know it, it mutates, brings in a new wailing trumpet line or a countermelody in the French horns, goes from quiet and stripped-down single-melody to whole band blaring in a matter of seconds. Julia would be able to put that into better words, probably. She could construct a metaphor and then unpack it right there in front of you, make the whole thing rhyme. All Donny can do is watch, give her music to back up her poetry, and try his best to harmonize when she sings.

“Thank you,” he says as he drifts off, his head tucked against her shoulder.

“Anytime,” she whispers back. And if he feels fingers in his hair, smoothing out the curls there—he won’t mention it in the morning.

“Hey, Jimmy,” Donny says, slipping into the booth and throwing his arm around the back, “did I do it?”

Jimmy doesn’t answer at first, engaged in some debate with Davy and Johnny across the table. So Donny does the only logical thing: jams an index finger into Jimmy’s cheek and starts jabbing, fast and hard like he’s playing Shostakovich.

The tactic is effective—only takes a bar and a half before Jimmy’s turning, grabbing Donny’s wrist and yanking him back. His hand is warm, soft and smooth unlike Donny’s—Donny wonders if Jimmy’s using moisturizer or something.

“Donny, what the fuck,” Jimmy says, glaring at him. This is definitely a level nine Peer, all the way up into the Angry but not quite at Furious.

“Did I do it?” Donny repeats. He’s grinning—he’s got enough alcohol in his blood already that he wants the warmth, wants the contact, and Jimmy’s not letting up his grip on Donny’s wrist.

“Do _what,_ you fucking animal,” Jimmy says.

“Learn how to talk to people,” Donny explains. “You know, like you said—after the first gig, about being a band leader—”

“Did you,” Jimmy says. He cuts himself off there, at the _you,_ and peers at Donny again. Donny likes Jimmy drunk—all his cleverness unravels and he just sits there vibrating, glasses hanging skewed off the tip of his nose, until someone gives him an excuse to show off. Donny, happy to be that excuse, waits patiently.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Donny,” Jimmy says. And then he turns and calls to Julia, standing at the bar: “Julia! Get us a round of shots.”

She does—quicker than Donny was able to wrangle shots earlier, maybe he needs to get a closer look at this bartender—and brings them over in two goes, enlisting Nick and Wayne between one trip and the next. She slips into the booth next to Donny, Nick sits down on the other side, Wayne pulls up a chair, and then there they are, all seven of them, crowded around a tiny table at the top of New York City.

“A toast,” Jimmy says, grabbing one glass and lifting it high, the liquor shining faintly gold in the bar’s fluorescent lights. “To the best damn band leader ever to hit this city. To Donny Novitski.”

“To Donny Novitski!” the rest of the band echoes.

Donny gapes at Jimmy for a moment, then smiles when Jimmy turns to grin at him and downs his own shot. The vodka—of course Julia would pick vodka—burns his throat and leaves him electric.

“That’s a hell of an answer, Campbell,” Donny says.

“Yeah, well,” Jimmy replies. “It’s the right one.”

Donny wants to throw his arms out wide wide wide—enough to encompass his whole band, anger and guilt and all. But he’ll settle for this, here, Jimmy on one end of the booth and Julia on the other, Julia’s heels clicking up against his loafers. As a vantage point to watch everyone, this will do.

He is in love with Julia, of course he is, she’s soft up against his side, her curls shining and her voice brilliant as a chorus of bells. But he’s also in love with Jimmy, grinning wildly as he downs a cocktail, and with Davy, his booming laughter filling the bar, and with Nick, the angry lines on his face smoothed for once as he squirms under Davy’s arm, and with Wayne, leaning back in his chair and smiling softly like a weight has been lifted, and with Johnny, drumming out a rhythm on the table as he cocks his ear to listen to some law school story Jimmy’s telling. Donny’s in love with them all, all shimmering silver, all whiskey and vodka and laughter in the starlight, all on top of the world.

Maybe Donny’s not the best band leader ever to hit this city. But he did this, didn’t he? He brought them together. He sang them a train, bold and shining, and they took it.

And even if they don’t win on Sunday—which they will, they _will,_ but even if they don’t—they will have had this night. Donny wants to encase it in amber or in gold, but all he can do is lean back, raise his arms like he’s cuing the start of a symphony, and order another round.

**Author's Note:**

> \- [the full shakespeare speech](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56972/speech-once-more-unto-the-breach-dear-friends-once-more) (i cut it down a bit in the fic's text but yes davy does read the whole thing)  
> \- [toccata marziale](https://open.spotify.com/track/2tvmieGABXFUuhkTPACKfe?si=AVba3VI_QmS-455KiqdEGA) (this piece inspired the title for my wayne character study! i am nothing if not consistent)  
> \- the character descriptions in this fic are kind-of a mix of bway cast and tour cast -- i was picturing zack zaro for donny and rob clove for jimmy, but joey pero is always nick to me, and geoff packard is always wayne to me.
> 
> i'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/owlinaminor) and [tumblr](https://owlinaminor.tumblr.com/)! talk bandstand to me <3


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